Goodnight Sweetheart || Narcissa ||

Narcissa hadn’t only lost a child. Carina had come the farthest of all of her children, growing inside her mummy’s belly for five months before whatever curse had been placed upon them finally took their sweet baby girl, but Carina was not the first, just the strongest. The miscarriages were harder on Narcissa than they appeared for Lucius. He was distraught over their struggles, clearly, but the toll they took on the blonde beauty were exceedingly worse. In losing Carina, Narcissa lost more than her child; she lost her husband and her marriage.

There were limited outlets for her grief. At first, sobbing day in and day out was the only thing she could do, hardly pausing to eat and only truly stopping while she slept, having cried herself to sleep of course. Lucius’ gentle touch had become a painful reminder of what they had lost, and so even the comfort of her husband’s arms was no comfort at all. After the tears ran dry and she had stared at the wallpaper for hours on end, there was only one thing left for her to do in her solitude and despair; paint.

A studio had been one of their requirements when finding a suitable place live, one of their first acts as a married couple. Narcissa had always found painting a way to release her emotions, whichever ones were bubbling at the surface at the time, and Lucius had made sure she had a proper place to release her creativity. Her studio had once been something of an oasis for her, but it had recently become a prison. She felt trapped by her own emotions and the only way to let out the grief was to paint her way out of the imaginary cell she had built around her. The older pieces, often bright and elegant, were hung around the walls on display but they were overshadowed and outnumbered by her more recent works which took on a much more somber tone.

For three days she had been working on this piece; a canal surrounded by buildings. The brushwork was more violent that she had been trained to use, and the colors more muted and heavily influenced by the night. Anyone familiar with the city of Venice would easily recognize the landscape Narcissa was painting but the precise location held a significance she had not intended upon first picking up her brush. Lucius had taken her to Venice to celebrate their engagement and as they floated down the canal in a captained gondola they began to plan their future together. They were planning their family.

The painting was not yet complete but the hour was growing late and her body had begun to ache from the weight of her sorrow. In silence she returned to her chambers, one of the many guestrooms in the manor. The thought of sleeping in the bed where Carina had been conceived had been too difficult for Narcissa, and after they buried their daughter the childless mother retreated to the safety of a neutral space. More than four months had passed in this room, each night she held herself in the dark and stared with her eyes unfixed in the blackness. As the weather outside grew warmer, the nights grew colder alone in her isolation.

Sitting on the tufted bench at the foot of the bed, Naricssa buried her face in her hands. There were no tears at this moment but a heavy sorrow pulled at her chest as she leaned forward into the weight of her own arms. Her desolation was interrupted by a knock at the door. There was no need to ask who had come to see her, her heart had been beating more rapidly as the time grew near and it had finally arrived. Lucius was bidding her goodnight, as he did every night, and she both loved and loathed the ritual.

Her thin frame felt like it was weighted down with a million anchors as she pulled herself to her feet and crossed the room to the tall, ornate door that separated her from the love of her life. Turning the knob slowly, Narcissa pulled the door toward her and let the light from the hall stream into her darkened room. Lucius, flooded by a soft white glow, looked like an angel and the sight made her want to burst into tears on the spot but she had shed everything she could earlier that day. Nothing was left for him but wide eyes, her mascara betraying her secrets from hours earlier. Her hair which had been delicately curled this morning had gone flat, flecks of grey paint clinging to the honey blonde locks. She looked up into his heavenly face saying nothing with her mouth but everything with her eyes.

In the early days of her self-imposed isolation, Lucius would knock and the door would go unanswered. She could hear him speak through the wood, telling her he loved her and wishing she would come back to bed. It was a long while before she could bring herself to open the door when he came each night. What he must have thought of her, of her cruelty towards him, was nothing more than her inability to cope with what was clearly not meant to be, but nevertheless she loved her husband and so after months of being unable to cross the room and open the door to him, Narcissa finally made a small step forward. She would turn the knob and pull the heavy door in towards her and stand there as Lucius tried to break through to her, but his efforts hurt too much for her to speak. She would stand there silently, sometimes still weeping, as Lucius kissed her cheek and bid her goodnight. They had come to a place where Narcissa could once again bear to look at her husband, the man she had let down time and time again, but she couldn’t move past her grief to a point where she could speak to him. She was stuck and unsure of how to deal with what was left of their lives.

Cygnus and Druella had been by only a few days ago to check in on their youngest daughter, but Narcissa’s father had never been one for dealing with emotional matters and had yelled at Narcissa for continuing to mope, as he called it, long after the child’s funeral. This tactic did not fair well with the fragile witch and Cygnus was ordered out of the room by his wife in a way that only a wife could order Cygnus Black around. Druella, though tenderness was not her forte, took a softer approach. Cissa confided that she felt she was losing Lucius to her depression but his touch only reminded her of their lost children and the pain she had caused their family.

Their children had all died inside of her. She was toxic. She was cursed.

Narcissa would never feel the joys of holding her sweet child in her arms. She would never know the strange sensation of nursing her infant, or teaching their baby to walk, or watching anxiously from the ground as their child kicked off on a broom for the first time. Every soft touch of Lucius’ hand or warmth of his lips on her skin was a painful reminder that not only had Merlin deemed her unfit to be a mother, but she had also unwittingly managed to murder her children simply by being the vessel in which they should have entered this world. How could she speak to her husband knowing she had single-handedly destroyed their family? She couldn’t, but Druella didn’t accept that as an answer. She encouraged her daughter to move toward their old life, even if it hurt. She had raised her children to withstand the pains of being a woman in a man’s world, surely Narcissa could manage the pains of faking harmony for the sake of her marriage. What woman didn’t, after all?

Our bedroom. It felt as though Lucius had chosen his words carefully, tonight just as every night before it. The room she was calling hers now was not her bedroom. Her place was with her husband. She knew it was and yet every night before this one when he explained he was retiring to “our bedroom” she nodded in acknowledgement and shut the door, separating them physically and emotionally. Their love wouldn’t survive this. Narcissa wouldn’t survive this.

Tired eyes looked up at the kind face of the man she had loved since she was a girl. She noted the sliver of hope that had been slowly diminishing from his face as she looked at him. Was there any hope left in his eyes? How long before Lucius stopped saying goodnight altogether? How long before he decided she wasn’t worth the trouble? The questions only helped Narcissa to sink further into her depression and had there been any way for her exhausted eyes to produce a tear she would have collapsed at his feet sobbing. Instead, she nodded solemnly. “Goodnight.”

A shred of anxiety caused her heart to beat faster as Lucius neared. It was distracting, her heartbeat, and though her doleful eyes kept fixed on her husband, on the thin crinkle above his brow that expressed his worries that she would reject him yet again, her focus was on the swelling sensation in her chest. He hovered near her cheek. His breath was warm and somehow both comforting and discomforting simultaneously. Eyelashes fluttering, Narcissa closed her eyes gently, trying in vain to attend to her husband more so than her broken heart. It was a daunting task. She frequently failed. But she didn’t pull away from him. She succeeded in that much. His lips on her skin was like electricity, zapping her in the precise spot where their bodies made contact. It stung but she knew it was all in her mind, so she didn’t flinch. The pain was her punishment for being unfit to be a mother and she would take it. She would do as her mother instructed her to do and pretend that she was better.

Cissa truly intended to say something, anything, to keep him near her longer, but she was weak and as his lips left her sallow cheek and he pulled away from her, Narcissa could only look to the floor before taking a step backwards and slowly moving her hand to the knob. She didn’t look at him as she shut the door. She couldn’t look at him. He was too beautiful and too pure to watch as she cut off a little bit more of the hope he still held in his eyes. Maybe tonight was the night that she squashed it completely. Perhaps this was their last goodnight. Cissa didn’t know, as she kept her eyes fixed on the ground as the shut out the light from the hallway and stood in the darkness of her depression. She felt a quiver in her chest as the need to cry surfaced again but there were still no tears to be shed and instead, Narcissa turned and made her way into the en suite.

Stripped of her paint splattered clothes, Narcissa stood beneath the spray of the shower, letting the water fall over her face. Colors streaked down her arms and pooled in a swirling grey-brown mess at her feet before slowly disappearing in the drain. There wasn’t much paint to be washed away, though what had settled into her hair had yet to be washed out. Soon, there was no reason to be standing in the shower any longer but the cold water in her skin stung and she used the shock of it to talk herself into her next steps. Hair still damp and her face free of any makeup, smudged or otherwise, Narcissa wrapped herself in her robe and returned to the bedroom she had claimed as her own. It wasn’t her bedroom and although she was terrified of what she was about to do, Narcissa stepped out into the hallway and made a slow but determined trek to where Lucius was unwittingly waiting for her. She didn’t knock but instead pushed open the door slowly and stepped into the room. The carpet was soft beneath her bare feet as she moved closer to the bed. She froze at the side of the bed, unable to move any closer but unwilling to go back the way she had come.

Her name on his lips was like fire spreading through her chest; it was warm and a tiny bit frightening. How long had it been since she’d said his name aloud? Several weeks, at least. She had no need to specify who she was speaking of on the rare occasions she spoke with her mother or sister about anything. Lucius was simply “he” and the baby, Carina, was “she”. When she spoke, they were the only topics of conversation. Sometimes Narcissa simply listened, especially as Bella lamented that Rodolphus couldn’t hold a candle to Lucius as far as doting husbands were concerned, but Cissa hadn’t much to say on that subject. Comparisons such as that one only led to tears and Bellatrix had only tried to cheer her up in such a fashion once or twice. She had always been a quick learner, her older sister.

Blue eyes stared down at the bleary face of the man she loved. She did love him, more than anything in the world. He was her only light in the darkness that had swallowed their fragile family and although it hurt her, she crept forward. Pressing her teeth into her lower lip to stave off a terrified quiver, Narcissa found his hand and leaned over to place her hand on it. Curling her fingers, she tightened her grip, asking silently for his strength. She wanted so badly to be with him again. She felt weakened in his presence. Narcissa closed her eyes and breathed deeply. A single tear rolled down her cheek. Anxious energy swelled in her chest. Her body was telling her to run, to retreat to the safety of her claimed chamber but instead she lifted her leg and climbed into the bed beside him.

The air was chilled around her and she felt vulnerable beyond measure as her body fell into the mattress beside her husband. Narcissa bit down harder on her lower lip as her head rested on the pillow. The mattress shifted and she could feel Lucius moving closer towards her. It only took a second but the anticipation of the contact he would deliver seemed to go on for ages. It was a slow burn as Narcissa very clearly heard every shift of his muscles and rustling of their silk sheets until finally the coolness against her skin was alleviated and instead replaced with a warmth that was all too familiar. Cissa’s eyes squeezed shut as her mouth fell open, inhaling a silent, ragged breath. A chill washed over her arms and down her legs making her toes curl and slide under the blanket.

Lucius’ arm under her neck was a support she had not realized she’d been missing all these months. Her hands moved to grasp his almost instinctively, both of her tiny hands enveloping his large one. She let out a whispered breath as she relaxed into her husband’s chest, and as she felt his free arm fall gently over her side, his hand resting on her flat, imperfect stomach, Cissa turned her face in toward her pillow and smothered a pathetic whimper.

She was certain Lucius could hear her heart thumping madly in her chest. It banged against her ears like a warning signal but this time she didn’t run away. She didn’t leave him to the darkness like she had so often retreated herself. There was no door being shut in his face, and no melodic footsteps dissipating into cold night’s air. Instead, Narcissa clung to her husband’s hand, curling herself further into the curve of his body, and ignored the emptiness she felt as his hand brushed against the inhospitable home she had created for all their deceased children.